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fore dedicated lo the amusements of the great, 
were contracted to make room for the labours 
of the industrious. For it is only among the 
most despotic governments that laws and 
usages such as we have before mentioned can 
remain in full force, that vast wastes can be 
permitted to lie uncultivated for the purposes 
of sporting. 
Falconry, however, though the principal 
amusement of our ancestors, was but little 
known to the Greeks and Romans. Aristotle 
merely mentions some rude practice of this 
art in Thrace ; and iElian speaks of Hawks 
and Crows among the Indians ; but little or 
no mention of true Falconry occurs before 
the days of Constantius, son of Constantine 
the Great. 
According to Berkman, Falconry seems to 
have been in the greatest perfection with the 
principal Courts of Europe in the twelfth 
century. Hence some have, therefore, ascri- 
bed the invention of it to Frederick the First, 
and others to Frederick the Second. 
" In our own country (says Pennant) I 
cannot trace the certainty of Falconry till the 
reign of King Ethelbert, the Saxon monarch, * 
